


The Legacy of Weng-Chiang

by Marcus_S_Lazarus



Series: The Twilight Storm [9]
Category: Doctor Who, Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover, The Shadow of Weng-Chiang- Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23547556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marcus_S_Lazarus/pseuds/Marcus_S_Lazarus
Summary: An attempt to backtrack the source of a distress signal results in the Doctor meeting some old friends, before he and Bella find themselves pitted against an enemy with disturbing similarities to Bella herself
Relationships: Tenth Doctor & Bella Swan
Series: The Twilight Storm [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694503
Kudos: 3





	1. The Signal

**Author's Note:**

> Another 'sequel' story, this time a sequel to the novel "The Shadow of Weng-Chiang"- itself a sequel to "The Talons of Weng-Chiang"-, along with reference to some other classic stories that I hope will be appreciated by all
> 
> Also a slight reference to the novel 'The Slitheen Excursion'; I didn't feel that I could do it justice if I tried to rewrite it like what I attempted for 'Prisoner of the Daleks', but I thought that it was something that should be referenced anyway

As I woke up, I looked around my room in the TARDIS, and found myself smiling as I took in the sight of my new home.

It was something I would never have imagined would be possible in the past, but this incredible ship, even if it would never lose its wonder, had already become a home to me in a way that Forks had never been after the Cullens left and that even Phoenix had never fully managed to be. I might never be sure where we'd actually _be_ in the TARDIS, but with the Doctor, I had a different sense of permanence; a sense of consistency and surety that, no matter what else I had to deal with, I wouldn't have to worry about _him_ leaving me or attempting something new and crazy without warning.

It had taken a while to get my room the way I wanted it, but I had to admit that I was certainly satisfied with the final result. Parts of the room appeared to have been shaped by my own memories, such as the bookcase containing all of my favourite books- and a few additional texts by other authors that I assumed the Doctor or the TARDIS thought that I would like- and the bed that was a duplicate of the one back in Forks, but there was also an old-fashioned writing-desk, a wardrobe filled with clothes from my era and a few others that would have left Alice shrieking with joy if she'd ever seen it, and a small sink with various toiletries like my toothbrush and toothpaste; I'd found an incredible bathroom a few doors down from my room when I was first being shown around the TARDIS, but I liked being able to just do my teeth without leaving my room.

Looking at the makeshift calendar I'd put together for myself after I'd started travelling with the Doctor- since tracking day and night wasn't exactly practical in a time machine, I'd drawn up a grid at the back of a notebook I'd found in my room in the TARDIS with each grid representing a day-, hanging on the wall beside the sink mirror, I was amazed to find that I'd been travelling with the Doctor for almost two months already. I'd known when I realised what he was offering that travelling in the TARDIS would be a great opportunity to get away from it all, but to realise that so much time had passed so quickly…

Admittedly, I hadn't enjoyed the week or so we'd spent on board the _Wayfarer_ during that mess with the Daleks and the Arkeon Threshold, but the rest of the time we'd spent together had still been highly enjoyable, with only the occasional moments of mad terror and potentially-life-threatening danger thrown in; how many people back in Forks could say that they'd been to the planet Peladon or seen Los Angeles in 1951 (London had been nice, but it was so close to my home time that it could have been considered a school trip rather than something _completely_ unique)?

I slightly regretted that June hadn't decided to stay with us after dealing with the Slitheen's attempt to alter Earth's past- it might have been nice to have someone around who was at least close to my age, even if she'd been a few years older-, but I could understand her reasoning; it hadn't exactly been the best trip to the past, given the numbers of innocents we'd seen dying and the references made to the aliens that would be killed when Earth's empire began to expand…

If it hadn't been for my greater experience of the universe with the Doctor, I might have been put off the idea of travelling with him any more myself; as it was, I'd seen enough to know that humanity would get better even if they'd make mistakes as well, and wasn't going to let that glimpse of us at our worse affect my faith in what we could accomplish.

Maybe I wouldn't live to see it, but I'd know that we'd get there in the end…

I was momentarily startled at the realisation of how relaxed I felt about the idea of my mortality being a factor once again- I'd wanted to become immortal to be with Edward, but now that he was gone I found myself comparatively uninterested in following that up-, but the feel of a faint tremor throughout the ship prompted me to abandon my reflection as I turned to hurry towards the console room.

I might still feel like I would always be trying to adjust to life in the TARDIS- a part of me wasn't sure that I'd ever get used to the Doctor's incredible machine; it was so beyond _anything_ I could have imagined in my old life-, but I knew enough to know that what I'd just felt was the sensation of the TARDIS preparing to land- or 'materialise', according to the Doctor's description- after a night in the vortex.

Arriving in the console room, I wasn't surprised to find the Doctor already there- I had yet to work out where his room was in the ship, but it was probably somewhere close to the console room, considering that he was always there first-, looking at the readings before him with a curious expression.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

"Yes and no," the Doctor replied, looking up at me with an expression that seemed to be a mixture of a smile and a frown. "We seem to be picking up a distress call, but it's more of an automatic thing than anything else; it actually looks like it's from one of my old transmitters…"

"Transmitters?" I repeated.

"Just a few little things I gave to a few old friends in the past," the Doctor explained. "Basically, in case they encounter something that merits my attention after they've left me, they can use this to alert me to where and when the problem is so that I can come and help, but this one doesn't _quite_ match that signal…"

"So… does that mean it's a trap?" I asked, not wanting to consider that brief implied reference to my own likely future; I would probably return to Forks someday, but at the moment I wasn't ready to think about that possibility yet.

"No, it just means that I'm going to need to backtrack it a bit and get there _before_ it's sent; there are certain factors to take into account that make it easier to do this now compared to other occasions," the Doctor said, smiling as he finished setting the coordinates, followed by the ship making the more familiar rumble of dematerialisation as the TARDIS returned to the real world. "And here we are."

"Uh… where _is_ here?" I asked in confusion.

"Oh, nowhere dangerous; Earth, back in the latter half of the 1970s, somewhere in England," the Doctor said, glancing briefly at the coordinates he'd just entered. "Seems familiar, but I can't place precisely why off the top of my head…"

He stared at it for a moment, but then he shrugged. "Still, that's not important; it's probably just been a while since I've been here."

"Uh… OK," I said, nodding in acceptance of the Doctor's assessment before I turned around to head for the TARDIS door; the Doctor might find the coordinates puzzling, but I had faith that he would have told me if something about the environment I was about to step into would be dangerous to me.

Walking out of the ship, I found myself in a room that put me primarily in mind of Forks' high school science classrooms, with various beakers and chemicals in a cupboard alongside a large double door, and a large desk with a couple of gas taps and a sink attached to it on the opposite side of the room. The TARDIS had materialised in an open area of the floor that gave the impression that space had been set aside specifically for something the size of the TARDIS, with a desk to its right and a window to its left once you stepped out of the ship, and a light layer of dust covered everything.

"Oh, _brilliant_ ," the Doctor said, grinning as he took in our surroundings after closing the door behind us.

"Brilliant?" I repeated, looking back at the Doctor in surprise. I knew that he enjoyed travelling for the chance to see new places, but his current grin seemed to be an excessive response to our arrival, considering the relative simplicity of our current location.

"This is my old lab!" the Doctor said, looking at me with a smile. "I worked with these people for five years- discounting how long I was here from _my_ perspective, anyway; the advantage of time travel is the amount of spare time you get- and-"

"Hold on; you _worked_ somewhere?" I said, my eyes widening as I looked at the Doctor incredulously; somehow, the idea of the Doctor staying somewhere to the point where he'd need to get a _job_ didn't quite fit the picture I'd been creating of him.

"Well, it was a matter of necessity at first- the TARDIS had been damaged and I needed access to the materials that they'd find in their line of work to repair it-, but I actually came to enjoy it here, really; even after I fixed the old girl, I kept on coming back here to stay until I'd regenerated again," the Doctor explained, grinning as he walked over to examine the contents of a nearby cupboard, only for his face to fall as he took in the contents.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"My things are here," he said, looking back at me with a less joyful expression.

"Uh… I thought you said this was your lab-?" I began, before I reminded myself that I was talking to a time traveller and we were somewhere he'd spent a lot of time in the past; I might not be clear on the fine details of time travel yet, but I'd heard enough about the dangers of changing history to guess what was worrying the Doctor. "Oh, you mean… there's some stuff there that should have been packed away if you weren't going to come back to get it?"

"Quite," the Doctor said, nodding uncertainly at the sight before him. "Which could mean that I might be coming back here…"

Before I could say anything else- I wasn't sure if I should be worried or intrigued at the idea that the Doctor might end up meeting himself-, the lab door suddenly opened and three men walked in, looking over at the TARDIS with an eager expression that faltered only slightly when they registered that the Doctor and I were there. Two of the men were dressed in military green uniforms that somehow struck me as being slightly old-fashioned, while the third was wearing a white lab coat over a blue shirt and trousers. The man in the lead had a small moustache and a long thin face while the other man in uniform had a slightly rounder head and a more immediately friendly expression, the third man possessing far thicker hair than his apparent colleagues along with equally thick sideburns.

Under most circumstances, this situation would have merited an angry confrontation or panic as the military men wondered who we were and I was left wondering how the Doctor would explain this, but judging by the grin on the Doctor's face I didn't have anything to worry about.


	2. Bella Swan, Meet UNIT

" _Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart_!" the Doctor cried, walking over to shake the man in the moustache warmly by the hand before turning to look at the others. "Doctor Harry Sullivan! Platoon Under-Leader John Benton! _Brilliant_ to see you all again!"

"Who…?" the man in the white coat- whose name was apparently Doctor Harry Sullivan- said, looking at the Doctor as though he was mad.

"Oh, sorry, of course you don't know me; I'm… well, I'm a bit older than I was when you last saw me, but it's _me_!" the Doctor said, suddenly grabbing Doctor Sullivan's right arm and holding his hand against the right and left side of his chest, still grinning at him. "Look; two hearts and the police box that just appeared? I know I'm a bit different, but who _else_ would I be?"

"…Doctor?" the man the Doctor had referred to as the Brigadier said, looking at my friend in confusion after a moment's pause for thought.

"That's me," the Doctor said, grinning at him before he reached over to put an arm around me. "Oh, and this is Bella Swan; she's my new companion."

"New?" Doctor Sullivan repeated in confusion. "But… but _Sarah_ -"

"Oh, right, I'm still with _her_ right now…" the Doctor said, nodding in understanding before he looked at the three of them before he smiled politely. "Just to check, when are you?"

" _When_ are we?" Doctor Sullivan said, looking at my friend in confusion. "We got back from Scotland a week ago; where… what took you so long?"

"Oh, Scotland?" the Doctor said, smiling in understanding at the other man. "So this is just after the affair with the Zygons and the Loch Ness Monster, right?"

"Uh… hold on, the Loch Ness Monster?" I asked, looking at the Doctor incredulously, my confusion forgotten when presented with the chance to learn something new about my world. "That's _real_?"

"Well, it was actually a cyborg controlled by an alien race called the Zygons, but it lived in Loch Ness and looked like the creature in question, so it's safe to call it that," the Doctor said, smiling at me before he looked back at the Brigadier. "Anyway, sorry about all that, Brigadier, but you won't be seeing the me you knew for a while; the chap in the scarf's just… gone off to do his own thing for a bit, even if he'll be available if you decide to call when you _really_ need him."

"I… see," the Brigadier said, looking uncertainly at the man before him before another thought came to him. "So… you'll… not be coming back?"

"Don't take it personally, Brigadier," the Doctor said, reaching over to pat the other man on the shoulder with a slight smile. "I'm just more of a wanderer when I'm wearing the scarf than I was when I showed up and started wearing frills and velvet; it's nothing against you al, I'm just less willing to… hang around now."

"I… see," the Brigadier said, looking at him with an ambiguous expression before he turned to look at me, a contemplative expression on his face for a moment before he held out a hand with a smile. "Well… a pleasure to meet you, Miss Swan, whatever the circumstances."

"Uh… thanks," I said, uncertain what else could be said as I shook the offered hand. "I've… heard almost nothing about you."

"In my defence, it's been a while and we've only been together for a few months; there hasn't been time to tell her about _everything_ ," the Doctor said, smiling awkwardly at him before he turned back to look at me. "Anyway, Bella Swan, these fine gentlemen are members of UNIT; you remember, we met them during that incident with the tunnel and the 200 bus?"

"Pardon?" Doctor Sullivan said, looking at the Doctor in confusion.

"It happens in the future; you don't need to worry about that, Bella and I will take care of it," the Doctor said, grinning reassuringly at the other man before turning back to me. "Anyway, UNIT was the organisation responsible for employing me during that whole experience with the TARDIS being grounded that I just told you about; I told you about them, right?"

"Just that they're the United Nation's… alien investigation division?" I asked, uncertain about the exact phrase the Doctor had used; he'd given me the essential details about UNIT after we'd stopped the Swarm, but there'd been so many other places he'd wanted to visit that 'd never gotten around to asking him for more information…

"That is essentially correct, Miss Swan," the Brigadier said, looking at me with a slight smile. "We investigate potentially unusual activity or anomalous events and take whatever action is appropriate; the Doctor officially serves as our primary scientific advisor, but his role is… well, like with anything involving the Doctor, things are rarely that well-defined."

"Where's the point in making everything too simple?" the Doctor asked, smiling over at me and the Brigadier before looking back at the others as something else occurred to him. "Talking of simple, what were you doing here anyway?"

"Nothing much," Benton said with a slight shrug. "We were… just closing up for the night."

"And you came here?" the Doctor asked, looking at Benton in surprise. "I mean, wouldn't my lab be locked anyway?"

"Just… part of the daily ritual, really, Doctor," Doctor Sullivan said, looking at the other man with a slight smile. "Update the night staff, make sure the last of the paperwork's been filed, check to see if you've come back…"

He shrugged. "I take it that we shouldn't worry about it?"

"Well… like I said to the Brigadier, I'm- the me you're expecting, anyway-, he's not really going to be dropping back in any time soon," the Doctor said, looking awkwardly at the other man before he shrugged. "It's the way I am now from your perspective, unfortunately; I'm just a bit less… settled, I guess."

"I see," the Brigadier said, looking pointedly at the Doctor for a moment before he looked at me, apparently deciding to move on. "Well… as long as you're here, Miss Swan, I apologise for the abrupt nature of our greeting; I suppose we should have learned by now to expect the unexpected when it comes to the Doctor's travelling companions."

"Don't worry about it," I said, smiling back at the older man in understanding.

"Just for them?" the Doctor said, looking at the Brigadier with a joking expression that could have almost been considered a pout.

"When it comes to you, Doctor, I learned when you arrived here with a completely new face that I should abandon the idea of knowing what I could expect from you," the Brigadier said, smiling slightly at the Time Lord. "Quite frankly, your ship seems to be the only thing that will ever remain constant about you, and from what Miss Grant told me about its interior I understand even that can alter?"

"Well, I did think about fixing the chameleon circuit so that the exterior would change as well once or twice, but I've found that I prefer it like this," the Doctor said, patting the blue box affectionately as he grinned at the rest of us. "If nothing else, it's a lot easier to find this way; can you imagine how annoying it is trying to remember which tree's yours when you land in a forest?"

"Good point," Doctor Sullivan said, smiling at the thought.

"So," Benton said- I couldn't quite recall his title and it had been a bit of a long one anyway-, looking curiously at the Doctor, "if you're not… well, the you we were expecting… and if he's not coming back yet, what are _you_ doing here?"

"Just passing through and found myself here," the Doctor said, shrugging in a nonchalant manner as he grinned at the other man. "Although, since I'm here, I have to ask; has there been anything… unusual happening lately?"

"Unusual?" the Brigadier repeated, looking at the Doctor thoughtfully for a moment before he shook his head. "Nothing… significant, anyway, Doctor; we've had a few situations crop up since… well, since you left, but it's been nothing that we couldn't look into on our own."

"You picked up a few interesting things when you were spending time with me, eh?" the Doctor said, grinning at the other man.

"Many things, Doctor, and some of which I would prefer not to be continued after your departure," the Brigadier said, even as a slight grin as he spoke suggested that he didn't consider what he was discussing to be as problematic as his tone implied.

"Aw, come on, you all know I made things more interesting around here!" the Doctor grinned back at the other man.

"Too interesting at times, Doctor," Benton said, although the fact that he returned the Doctor's grin with one of his own suggested that he didn't particularly mind it.

I was just about to ask what kind of things they had experienced with the Doctor when I heard a loud explosion and suddenly found myself facing a massive wave of fire where the door to the lab had been before the Doctor grabbed me and threw me to the floor, the sound of sudden thumps behind me suggesting that the three men we'd been talking to had ducked out of harm's way themselves.

Looking up as the heat died down, I saw that the door had been practically decimated by the explosion and the corridor beyond it had been charred black where the wall hadn't been destroyed, the ringing in my ears being quickly confirmed as the sound of what I assumed was the fire alarm blaring in another part of the building.

_Oh my God_ … I thought, feeling slightly awed despite my instinctive terror at being in danger again. _Someone set off a_ bomb…

It wasn't exactly a safe situation to be in, but at least this potentially answered the question of what had drawn the Doctor here.

The only question now was if we could do anything about it in time to make any kind of difference…


	3. UNIT Aflame

"Brigadier!" the Doctor yelled, anxiously getting up from where he was lying over me to examine his fallen friends. "Harry, Benton; are you all right?"

"Bit sore, but I'm still breathing, anyway," Doctor Sullivan said, wincing as he got up from where he'd fallen to the ground, holding his arm in a manner that suggested something was damaged even if I couldn't tell precisely what.

"I've… been worse," Benton said, blood streaming from a cut above his eye as he sat up. To his right, the Brigadier was also getting to his feet, burn damage visible around his shoulders that presumably stretched down along the back of his jacket but otherwise unharmed.

"Well," he said, looking grimly over at the Doctor, " _that_ was… unexpected."

For a moment, I wondered what the Brigadier meant by that, considering that we were in a military base that was bound to come under attack at some point, but an explanation soon occurred to me; considering what the Doctor had told me about UNIT, these people were probably used to dealing with danger, but, based on the Doctor's stories, I was fairly sure that any aliens attempting to destroy this place would have used something that would have just killed everyone already, rather than a relatively imprecise bomb.

In other words, whoever had just attacked us probably wasn't the kind of person who would normally go after UNIT, which meant that there was something else going on here beyond the obvious guess of some kind of alien invasion (And what did it say about my life where I'd already reached a point where I was comfortable considering alien invasions to be a credible threat?).

"Could this be… what drew us here?" I asked, looking over at the Doctor and lowering my voice as the other three headed out to the corridor, leaving the Doctor to help me get back to my feet.

"Possibly," the Doctor said, nodding grimly at me. "The distress beacon was programmed to let me know if there was any sign of serious danger in the vicinity of the transmitter, and something like this would definitely qualify…"

Further speculation ended when the Brigadier came back in, looking solemnly at us as Benton and Doctor Sullivan's footsteps hurried along the outside corridor as they faded into nothing.

"No sign of significant structural damage, but there's no signs of activity in the immediate area; even if it's only the night shift, there should have been someone else here," he said. "Sergeant Benton and Doctor Sullivan are going to check for survivors, and I have to get to the main office; maybe I can call for assistance from some of the local sources."

"It's… worth a shot," the Doctor said, in the manner that clearly indicated he'd changed his mind about what he was about to say mid-sentence; I had little doubt that he'd been thinking about commenting on the unlikelihood of the Brigadier's plan working out, but had realised that his friend was probably already aware of that.

"What can we do?" I asked, looking anxiously at the Brigadier before I could stop to think about what I was asking.

After so long letting the Cullens 'take point', it felt strange to be asking what I could do to help, but I was rapidly coming to realise that I liked being able to make a contribution; the Doctor might be my intellectual superior, but he wasn't afraid to give me a chance to prove myself…

"Do what you can to find any other survivors, Miss Swan," the Brigadier said, his words bringing me back to the present before he turned to the Doctor. "If you wouldn't mind accompanying me, Doctor?"

"Of course," the Doctor replied, smiling at the other man. "Shouldn't take too long to get a radio working, even if it's been broken."

After a brief smile in my direction, the two men turned around and hurried out of the lab and down one corridor, leaving me to run down another, all the while trying not to think about the fire damage I was witnessing in the corridors around me as I ran.

For a while, I was grateful at the lack of activity- I witnessed a few damaged offices, but no sign that anyone had been in them; somehow, even after the death I'd seen with the Doctor, the thought of seeing more dead bodies wasn't exactly comforting-, but when I turned around a corner a few corridors along from the lab, I was completely confused to find myself facing what looked like a classic ninja warrior, dressed in an all-black outfit, although the ninja effect was spoiled by the fact that the man was carrying a gun rather than a sword.

Stuck for anything else to do as the man pointed the weapon at my chest, I screamed and ducked to the side, taking advantage of the other man's momentary distraction at my scream- I had a feeling that my clothes had something to do with it; he probably wasn't expecting someone to be dressed so casually in a military base- to kick out at his leg as I fell backwards. I wasn't sure if it was a miracle, if my time with the Doctor had helped me learn how to move more quickly, or if it was just simple luck, but I managed to strike my target right where I was intending to hit him, sending him falling to the ground with a loud thump.

For a moment, I thought about the possibility of arming myself with his gun, but quickly decided against it; aside from anything else, considering my vulnerability to accidents I'd probably end up shooting myself before I shot anyone else. With that possibility dismissed, I gave the downed man a quick kick to the head to try and make sure that he remained unconscious for a few more minutes, and then continued on my way, senses alert for additional trouble.

As I continued to hurry through the corridor, I tried not to consider the implications of that other figure too intently; he was probably affiliated with whoever was responsible for this attack on UNIT, but that didn't explain why he was dressed like… like _that_ …

Trying not to ponder that mystery in depth- I'd worry about that once the Doctor, his friends and I were out of danger-, I continued walking along the corridor, my hopes lifting as I encountered no signs of any injured UNIT personnel or any other men in black, but my hopes were quickly ended when I walked around another corner to find myself looking at a still body lying on the ground in a white coat with thick curly brown hair.

"Doctor Sullivan!" I cried out, hurrying over to crouch down beside the older man, anxiously checking him over; he had a bloody wound on his forehead, but he seemed to be breathing normally. I was about to get up and call for help, when the sound of additional footsteps alerted me to the fact that I wasn't alone in this corridor.

Looking up, I was momentarily shocked to find myself looking at the Doctor apparently walking around with his eyes shut, but then he fell to the ground and I realised that someone had been carrying him after knocking him out, most likely intending for the Doctor to be a human shield. Facing the person who had been carrying my friend, I found myself looking at a man of such significant size and bulk that he almost seemed to rival Emmett, the impression made somehow more effective by the burn damage around his left eye and the potch-mark damage around his skin that gave the impression he'd been in a fire at some point. He looked vaguely Chinese to me, dressed in a dark suit with a long black coat that put me in mind of a robe, but I wouldn't have liked to swear to it; even without the skin damage he'd sustained somehow, that kind of assessment wasn't exactly a strong point…

"Where is he?" the man said, his withered face glaring at me with an expression of such intense hatred that I couldn't believe that only a human could be demonstrating it. "Where is the Doctor?"

"What?" I said, looking at the man before me in confusion.

"The _Doctor_ ," the man repeated, glaring at me in a manner that made it clear that he felt that the name was enough.

It wasn't much of a clue, but it was more than I'd had before; whoever these people were, it seemed like at least this man knew who the Doctor was.

Stuck for alternatives, my mind raced to try and process the implications of this new information.

If this man was looking for the Doctor even after he'd knocked my friend out, he probably didn't know what the Doctor looked like, which at least suggested that the Doctor's old stories about his ability to change his appearance were accurate, and this man was looking for an _older_ Doctor (Or maybe it was a future Doctor; I had to remind myself that I wasn't dealing with a lifestyle where cause automatically followed effect any more).

Either way, if this man didn't know what the Doctor looked like, _I_ wasn't going to tell him.

"I don't know-" I said.

" _Liar_ ," the man said, grabbing me by the shoulders as he glared at me. "You are not a solider, which means you must be the Doctor's latest _changji_ ; where is he?"

I didn't know enough Chinese to know what this man had just called me, but I knew enough about physical expressions to know that it hadn't been a compliment.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, trying to focus on what was relevant in the current situation. "The Doctor isn't _here_ -"

I barely even had time to see his arm move before I felt something strike me in the side of the head, leaving me to fall into unconsciousness as the man stared malevolently at me…


	4. The History of a Butcher

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Essentially a 'briefing' chapter clarifying who the villain is and what he wants, but I felt it was worth writing; I hope you appreciate the final result

Blinking my eyes open, I was momentarily confused about my current location, a dim voice only just understandable through the pain in my head and the discomfort in my limbs and my vision currently blurry from whatever had just happened to me. Too sore to focus on seeing at the moment, I closed my eyes and concentrated, until my ears finally made out the sound of the Doctor's calm voice responding to the infuriated rants of the man who'd knocked me out earlier.

"…not here-" the Doctor was trying to say.

"His Time Cabinet is here, so _he_ must be!" the man said, followed by the sound of something striking flesh that I assumed was him hitting the Doctor. "He would _not_ abandon those who serve him; he is a killer, but he had demonstrated _some_ semblance of loyalty!"

"We do not _serve_ the Doctor, Mr-" the Brigadier's voice attempted to interject, only for the man to strike him in the face.

"Do _not_ attempt to deceive me!" the man said, glaring at the Brigadier. "The Doctor has _always_ sought followers who share his beliefs; you will _not_ escape by claiming that you do not know him!"

It didn't take a genius to work out that the Doctor and the rest of his friends were going along with this man's ignorance of regeneration to buy us time; this man clearly wanted the Doctor for something specific, so until we had the chance to work out what that was, our best shot at getting out of here was to feign ignorance.

"We never said we didn't _know_ him, we just said we didn't know where he is," I said, drawing the man's attention back to me; I noted that I was sitting down something was wrapped around my upper body, but I was more focused on the sight of the man who'd knocked me out standing in front of me, clearly frustrated at recent events. "He comes and goes; he's not someone who hangs around a lot!"

"For your sake, he had better still be here," the man said, walking over to glare at me with an expression that reminded me of James when he'd been about to eat me. "I've waited far too long to find the Doctor again to be stopped now; if I can't have _him_ , I'll have to settle for you and hope he feels _something_ about you all."

With that disturbing remark, he turned and walked towards the door, turning back to look at us with a smirk. "I'll give you an hour or so to think about that and then, if you still can't tell me where the Doctor is…"

He shrugged, smirking at us all before his gaze focused on me. "As I said, if I cannot find the Doctor, I will settle for hoping that he feels something for you so that he may understand what he did to me."

With that ominous threat, he turned and walked out of the room, leaving us alone in the room. Glancing around, I found that I was sitting in what appeared to be a conference room of some kind, with the Doctor, the Brigadier, Doctor Sullivan and Sergeant Benton sitting around the table, ropes bound around our upper bodies to keep us in the chairs that we were sitting in and arms behind our backs.

"Not a very pleasant chap, that," Doctor Sullivan said. "I assume we don't want to be here when he gets back?"

"Not in the least," the Doctor said, grinning around at the rest of us as he began to flex his arms slightly while he continued to speak, the ropes shifting a surprising amount (Then again, given the Doctor's nature I wouldn't be surprised if he'd taken lessons from Houdini or something like that just in case of something like this). "Just give me some time to get out of these bonds, and we can get on with sorting out this particular mess."

"And what mess would that be, exactly, Doctor?" the Brigadier asked, looking curiously at the Time Lord, surprisingly nonchalant despite the peril as though he already had faith in the Doctor and didn't need anything more than him to know that they'd get away. "I don't suppose you could tell us who- or should I say what- we're dealing with?"

"Well, he doesn't have us under surveillance- it's all pretty basic in here and he assumes that I'm already going to be coming back for the TARDIS if I'm not hidden here already; he doesn't need to spy on us-, so, to tackle the obvious question, he's human, and his name is Kwok," the Doctor explained.

"Kwok?" Benton repeated in confusion.

"He's Chinese," the Doctor explained. "I met him in Shanghai in 1937, back when… well, actually, it was the last me you all met; the scarf and curls, you know."

"Ah," Benton said, nodding in understanding.

"Is that why he's come here now?" Doctor Sullivan asked, looking curiously at the Doctor. "I mean, could he have… found out that the you we know was here recently and thinks that means he can find him here?"

"That's… actually, that's possible," the Doctor said, smiling over at Doctor Sullivan. "Kwok was the member of a major Chinese Triad back when I knew him, and they're typically surprisingly well-connected even without the unique background of this group; considering how little he really knew about me, it wouldn't be impossible to assume that he had a contact or two keeping an eye out for that me, and thought that reports of me being here when I was dealing with the robot and the Zygons were proof that I was going to be here on a semi-regular basis…"

"Mmm," the Brigadier said, in a tone of voice that somehow said a low without saying anything, before he looked more curiously at my friend. "So, what did you do to this 'Kwok' chap to make him go to all this trouble to get you?"

"He blames me for the death of his lover," the Doctor replied.

"And… what _really_ happened?" I asked, looking inquiringly at my friend; I knew that the Doctor wouldn't kill someone unless he had to, but that still created a lot of possible scenarios where he could have killed someone because he didn't have a choice or because someone just wanted someone else to blame…

"Well, that's a long story that starts in the fifty-first century…" the Doctor said, looking thoughtfully down at himself before he looked up with a smile as he continued to move his arms while straining against his bonds. "Still, while I'm working on these, and since Kwok's going to take a while looking for me elsewhere, shall I tell it to you?"

"Please do," the Brigadier said with a nod and a slightly amused smile despite his current confinement.

"Well, as I said, it starts in the fifty-first century, with a man called Magnus Greel," the Doctor explained, his shoulders shifting slightly as he spoke as he worked away at his bonds. "Greel was a prominent figure in the government of that era- officially the Minister of Justice for the Supreme Alliance that controlled most of Earth, although there wasn't much of it that was worth controlling by that point; most of the population had moved on and left Earth as a factory planet for Earth's empire by then-, and was working with various sources to perfect time-travel, but after his crimes were exposed when he tried to assassinate the commissioner of the Icelandic Alliance, he used his prototype Time Cabinet to escape into the past, arriving in China in 1872."

"Over a century ago?" the Brigadier said, looking at the Doctor in surprise.

"Yeah, I know; amazing how long-lasting the effects of these things can be sometimes," the Doctor confirmed, before he continued his story. "Anyway, Greel was discovered by local peasant Li H'sen Chang shortly after his arrival, with Chang giving Greel shelter because he believed that Greel was a god; specifically, he mistook Greel for Weng-Chiang, the god of abundance, worshiped by local criminal fraternity the Tong of the Black Scorpion, given the whole thing with him appearing out of thin air in a flash of light being fairly god-like. After the Time Cabinet was taken by the Emperor soldiers', given a bit of a paint-job, and given to a British soldier as a gift, Greel used his advanced knowledge in genetics to give Chang psychic powers that would help him lead the Tong in the search for the Cabinet."

"So… how did that turn out for them?" Doctor Sullivan asked.

"Not well, really," the Doctor said grimly. "They tracked the Cabinet to London in 1889, but my current allies and I were able to find it first when I was investigating his victims; Greel ended up suffering cellular collapse when I threw him into his own catalytic extraction chamber."

"His what?" I asked.

"Long story short, his time-travel equipment caused serious cellular damage to his system," the Doctor explained. "He'd been killing people to try and control the rate of decay by using the chamber to replace his damaged cells- extract certain compounds from the victims and use the chamber to add them to his own make-up, but that method was really just holding things together while wearing him down in the long term."

"So… when you threw him into the chamber, it extracted everything he needed from his own body?" Doctor Sullivan asked, his expression reflecting his discomfort at the scenario described. " _That_ couldn't have been pleasant…"

"It wasn't a very nice way to go, true, but Greel had killed thousands for his own benefit and would have killed me and my friends if I didn't stop him; if anyone deserved it, he did," the Doctor said firmly, a ruthless edge to his voice that did more to confirm how evil Greel had been than anything else could have done. "What I didn't know at the time was that Chang had a daughter, Hsien-Ko Chang, who had access to her father's journals- and hence everything Li had ever learned from Greel-, and was also virtually immortal thanks to her father's exposure to zygma energy before her conception."

" _Virtually_ immortal?" Benton asked, looking at the Doctor curiously. "What do you mean, virtually immortal?"

"Well, I met her in 1937 when she was chronologically sixty-five and she looked like she was in her mid-twenties at best, but I don't know how she aged before that; what she told me suggested that she'd just stopped aging after she reached a certain point, but I can't exactly be certain that she was just making assumptions out an inability to make more in-depth examinations," the Doctor explained, shrugging slightly before he continued his story. "Kwok was her lover and fiancé, and some people regarded him as the official head of the Tong of the Black Scorpion to make it easier for them to accept instructions from Hsien-Ko; he'd certainly have enough influence to control what was left of them after I sorted out their last plan…"

"OK, so that explains who he is and who she is, so how does that tie in to him believing that you killed Hsien-Ko?" I asked, looking curiously at the Doctor.

"Well, in a nutshell," the Doctor said with a grim smile, "she was working on a means of intercepting the Time Cabinet on its trip back through time, causing Greel to arrive in 1937 rather than 1872, intending to trap Greel somewhere isolated in a modified catalytic extraction chamber where he'd be constantly kept on the verge of death while various small animals kept him alive."

"Oh my God…" I said, wincing at the mental images evoked by the Doctor's description. "That's… that's just…"

"Sick?" the Doctor asked, looking at me with a sad smile. "She justified it by wanting to honour her father, but I agree with you completely; Greel had already suffered a rather unpleasant fate as his cellular structure fell apart, and the fact that some of the Tong still venerated him wasn't going to make that any less pleasant."

"Hold on…" Benton said, looking uncertainly at the Doctor. "She was going to stop this… Magnus Greel bloke from reaching 1872… but wouldn't she only know how to do that because he _did_ arrive there?"

"Excellent observation, my dear Benton," the Doctor said, nodding at Benton with a warm smile before his expression became more solemn once again. "And therein lay the key flaw in Hsien-Ko's plan, John m'boy; she thought that the fact that Greel had made it back against all the odds proved that time didn't work the way the general population expected and that she _could_ change history like that, but I knew that it wouldn't work like that even if I didn't object to what she was planning on a moral level."

"So… what actually happened?" I asked; the sooner I could get the images of someone being trapped in the kind of state the Doctor had just described out of my head, the better. "Did she succeed?"

"Well… yes and no," the Doctor replied, looking at me with a slightly awkward smile. "She managed to generate the energy necessary to interrupt the Zygma beam and draw the Cabinet to 1937, but I managed to prevent her plan succeeding by getting to the TARDIS and materialising the old girl in the exact spot where the Time Cabinet would arrive, essentially 'shoving' it back on course."

"You mean… you got there first, so the Cabinet just… kept on its original route when it couldn't park?" I asked, looking uncertainly at the Doctor.

"Basically, yes; good analogy, Bella," the Doctor said, nodding at me with a smile before his expression became grim once more. "Unfortunately, I didn't have time to take the consequences of such a shift on Hsien-Ko into account; the temporal feedback caused by such a temporal paradox short-circuited the zygma energy and essentially erased Hsien-Ko as she was form history, although the fact that the system wasn't a closed circuit meant that everyone still remembered her even if she disappeared."

"So… she's erased from existence because of her own mistake, and Kwok blames you for it?" I asked.

I could kind of understand how Kwok came to that conclusion- from what the Doctor had described him as, he wouldn't exactly have been willing to hear the Doctor's perspective on what had happened prior to her death, so all he'd have seen is Hsien-Ko's plan failing because of something the Doctor did and her vanishing-, but the idea that someone could spend forty years looking for revenge for someone…

It could have been romantic if you looked at it the right way, but right now I just thought of it as sick and pathetic; why were people so fixated on causing more death to try and avenge someone else's death?

"Best guess, anyway; I've never really bothered to get revenge myself, so I can't say for certain how anyone would react to a situation like that," the Doctor said, shrugging awkwardly as he looked over at me. "That still leaves a few questions about Kwok, of course- even if we assume he's aged well, he couldn't have aged well enough to look like that on his own-, but we can worry about that later; right now, we have to get out of here before he works out who I really am."

"You're saying he's waited all these years… for revenge?" Harry said, looking sceptically at the Doctor. "It… seems a bit stupid…"

"And that's why I like you all, Harry," the Doctor said, smiling over at the medical officer. "You understand what they're doing intellectually, but you'd never do it yourselves; that's what matters most."

It was a weird feeling, but I was actually rather touched at the Doctor's last statement; our lives might be weird and incredible by any standards, but it was somehow comforting to know that I'd earned the admiration of a man who'd seen so much…

"Right then," the Doctor said, looking around at the rest of us as he finished undoing his bonds and stood up from the chair, clapping his hands together with a satisfied smile. "We're taking back UNIT; once I've got everyone out, anyone have any preferences for where we go first?"


	5. Kwok Falls

"You're seriously letting them go to the armoury first?" I asked, looking at the Doctor in surprise as we hurried back to the laboratory where the TARDIS had materialised; once the Doctor had untied the rest of us and unlocked the door with the sonic screwdriver, it hadn't taken long to decide that the UNIT members would go to the weapons locker and re-arm themselves while the Doctor and I retreated to the TARDIS (I was partly surprised that the Doctor still had the TARDIS key and his sonic screwdriver, but considering the apparently pan-dimensional nature of his pockets, it probably wasn't worth worrying about; Kwok probably hadn't felt anything when patting the Doctor down and simply concluded that there wasn't anything in the pockets worth looking for).

"I may prefer non-violent solutions, but I'm not going to try and reason with a fanatic when I'm unarmed; there's being optimistic and there's being stupid," the Doctor replied, pausing to check around a corner before continuing along the corridor towards the lab. "Besides, the sooner I can recover the TARDIS, the better; Kwok might not be interested in owning it himself, but if he thinks he can make me use it to recover Hsien-Ko…"

"Best to get it somewhere safe?" I finished for my friend.

"Once we've run a few searches, anyway," the Doctor said, opening the door and walking into the lab, pulling out the TARDIS key and entering the ship with his usual ease, heading over to the console and beginning to tap another set of controls on the console. "The first priority is to work out where he keeps it…"

"Keeps what?" I asked.

"The catalytic extraction chamber," the Doctor explained.

"Hold on; wasn't that the thing you said that Greel used?" I said, looking at the Doctor in shock. "But wasn't-?"

"That a very dangerous and foolish attempt at immortality?" the Doctor finished for me, looking up at me with a brief smile as he continued his work. "Indubitably, but part of that was because of the damage that Greel's cells had already sustained from exposure to zygma energy; used on a healthier physiology, it would still be highly ethically questionable what with the whole 'stealing life-energy from other people' thing, but it might have _some_ chance of at least extending life even if it wouldn't be the path to immortality Greel believed."

"But…" I said, looking uncertainly at him. "If you can do this- find his equipment, I mean-, then-?"

"Why didn't I do it earlier?" the Doctor finished for me. "I didn't know we were dealing with Kwok when I arrived and had no reason to believe that anything of Greel's was involved in this mess; now that I know what I'm looking for, it shouldn't be that hard to find the right energy signature for his equipment…"

"You know what to look for?" I asked.

"I had the opportunity to analyse Greel's extraction chambers in both time periods after he'd left- the one he built in the future and the one he created in the past-; make allowances for the fact that Kwok would be working based on third-hand information in Chang's diaries and updated technology, and it could work," the Doctor replied. "Anyway, the chamber's the best explanation I can come up with to account for Kwok looking so relatively healthy; as I said, it's not immortality, but it would delay the aging process long enough for him to have made it this far in such relatively good condition."

"OK, that's… something," I said, before I stepped back and watched as the Doctor continued his work, tapping away at the controls as he thoughtfully studied the screen positioned above the console he was working on.

It was strange, but when I stopped to think about Kwok, I could almost understand him.

I didn't agree with _what_ he was doing, of course, but that was just because I wasn't a naturally violent person and had never been in that kind of situation myself; was it possible that, if I'd been faced with a situation where someone had actually been responsible for permanently separating me from Edward, that I would have gone that far?

In the end, Kwok and I weren't that different, based on the superficial details that the Doctor had given me; we were both normal humans who'd fallen in love with an immortal that we'd believed would be there until we died, only for them to leave us…

_No_.

It wasn't the same.

Even if Edward had been killed by James during that fight rather than leaving me of his own accord, I wouldn't have gone to _these_ lengths to ensure James's death.

I would have tried to work out some way that I could help the Cullens kill him, but if it had come down to a choice between trying to kill James and move on with my life, I would have tried to move on; losing Edward would have been devastating, but I wouldn't have dedicated my life to killing his murderer.

"What do we do once we've found his equipment?" I asked.

"Remove something vital to make him listen to us," the Doctor said. "If he's used the chamber to get to this point, he probably needs it to keep going, which would mean that we can use it as a bargaining chip to make him listen."

"And… you think we need to make him listen?" I asked.

"Keep in mind that he's inclined to take Hsien-Ko's side in these situations; he probably thinks that I let her die because it was convenient, and he's never going to believe me if I try and argue about the dangers of changing history after so many of Hsien-Ko's plans relied on it considering how devoted he was to her," the Doctor explained, pausing in his work to look briefly at me. "If we can find his equipment, we might be able to get him to listen if we can operate from a position of strength, but we can't just drop in and hope for the best."

The TARDIS console beeped as the Doctor finished speaking, prompting him to examine the nearest monitor with a smile. "Ah, there we are; a few miles away, in an abandoned apartment complex. Can't tell anything about who might be there with it, but if we're quick we should be able to catch them off-guard, particularly with the old girl in her current shape."

I was about to ask for more information when the ship's doors opened again and the Doctor's three UNIT contacts walked into the ship, now carrying slightly old-fashioned guns.

"Doctor…" the Brigadier said, his expression shifting as he took in the surroundings. "Good lord…"

"Yes, I had some work done; what do you think?" the Doctor said, smiling over at the other man.

"Very… interesting," Doctor Sullivan said, smiling slightly as he studied the ship.

"Thanks," the Doctor said, before he turned his attention back to the console. "Anyway, we've identified the location where Kwok's keeping his equipment; shall we head over and take a look?"

"You think he'll be there?" the Brigadier asked.

"Within the right range if he moved quickly enough, and he'd probably want to touch base with his men to work out how to find me; bit of a long shot, but it works," the Doctor explained.

"Sounds like a plan," Benton said, nodding in approval at the Doctor. "Shall we go?"

"Just a quick hop, and we're there," the Doctor said, as he began to tap at the relevant controls. "Trust me, I'm a lot better at piloting the old girl now then I was when we knew each other; just give me a moment…"

After a few moments as the ship wheezed and groaned through its usual dematerialisation and materialisation process, the Doctor opened the door and led the rest of us out of the ship. I found that we were now standing in what looked like an old laboratory, cluttered with various pieces of equipment that looked remarkably clunky to my eyes (I tried to remind myself that we were only in the late seventies at this point, but even with that in mind there was still a lot of spare parts lying around that gave the impression they'd been tossed aside because someone didn't know what to do with them).

"This is his lab?" Benton asked.

"It's where his equipment's located, anyway," the Doctor said, looking around the room for a moment before he picked up a large object that put me in mind of a handheld hoover. "And _this_ must be his own version of a 'TARDIS sniffer-outer'…"

"A what?" I asked.

"Jo came up with the name; it works," the Doctor said, shrugging as he studied the object thoughtfully. "He spent decades working out how to track the TARDIS… I don't know if I should be depressed or impressed."

"Tricky to come up with on his own?" Benton asked.

"Considering that he was working on the assumption that he was looking for a Time Cabinet powered by zygma energy rather than a TARDIS, 'tricky' is not the word," the Doctor said, putting the object back down on the table close to me. "He'd have the energy of the dragon paths to use as a starting-point- a side-effect of ley lines and zygma energy created a teleportation network that Hsien-Ko could use; the dragon paths and the TARDIS 'interacted' enough for me to interfere with Greel's cabinet's progress, and Kwok would know that-, but to go from that to this…"

He sighed. "Tragic, really; he knew enough to put that together, and all he can do with it is try and find me to kill me…"

Moments like that reminded me why I liked spending time with the Doctor; even when dealing with someone who had dedicated his life to destroying the Doctor, my friend still focused on pitying the waste of potential rather than worrying about what might happen to him.

"Look at this," I said, picking up a map of a building from a table and showing it to my new friends (I was surprised at how quickly I was thinking of them as such, but quickly put that thought aside; given everything we shared as the Doctor's friends, it was only natural that I should consider them friends, right?).

"UNIT HQ?" the Brigadier said, walking over to look at the map with me, contemplatively indicating a few areas where there were crosses on the maps. "These must indicate where he planted the bombs…"

"Doctor?" Doctor Sullivan said, indicating a corner of the room. "What's this?"

Looking at what he had indicated, my eyes fell on a large object around six feet tall, putting me in mind of a doorless cupboard, connected up to a large box with a sliding lever on the side along with some other controls I couldn't quite understand.

"The catalytic extraction chamber," the Doctor said, looking grimly at it.

"You mean… the thing this 'Greel' chap used to stay alive?" the Brigadier asked.

"Exactly," the Doctor confirmed. "He uses it to extract key proteins and chemicals from the victims, and then uses it to add those chemicals to his own body; gives him a boost, but it wasn't the path to immortality he believed, and the fact that he had to take those proteins from other people…"

"Understood," Benton said, nodding grimly at the Doctor before he turned around, aimed his gun at the cabinet, and fired. The bullets struck the chamber's interior and tore through the metal panels, leaving it sparking and shattered from the pieces scattered around it.

"Good riddance-" the Brigadier began, before the door opened and Kwok charged into the room, looking at the five of us in shock.

"YOU?" he said, looking incredulously at us. "How did you escape?"

"You missed a few details when you were searching us," the Brigadier said, looking firmly at the other man.

"You never could think ahead, could you, Kwok?" the Doctor said, looking coldly at the other man. "As I recall, you were always just in favour of killing everything that might be a danger to Hsien-Ko without thinking about the wider issues last time; did you think about _anything_ here beyond 'blow stuff up and grab the Doctor in the confusion'?"

"You do _not_ get to judge me; you don't know what I have lost-!" Kwok said, looking indignantly at the Doctor.

"Do you honestly believe that just because you lost the woman you loved, that gives you the right to kill innocent people?" the Brigadier asked, looking coldly at Kwok.

"The Doctor is _not_ innocent; he destroyed her life-!" Kwok protested.

"If there had been another way to resolve that problem, I would have taken it," the Doctor said, staring firmly at our adversary. "I did everything I could to convince Hsien-Ko that what she was attempting was too dangerous even if I couldn't convince her that it was morally wrong, but, in the end…"

He sighed sadly as he looked at Kwok. "I didn't have the time to find another way, and she paid the price for that. If you believe only one thing I have to say, believe this; I am _so_ sorry I couldn't save her."

"What…?" Kwok said, staring at the Time Lord uncertainly before his eyes widened in apparent realisation. "Doctor?"

"Yes," the Doctor said, nodding solemnly at Kwok. "It's me."

As Kwok's bemused expression changed to a cold rage of the kind I had never seen before- Laurent and James had only ever wanted to kill me for fun, and I hadn't had the opportunity to really see how Edward or Jacob had looked when they were defending me even if Edward hadn't been that 'serious' about it-, I suddenly realised that I was the only person available to do anything without hurting someone else by accident, and I reacted as soon as I could.

As Kwok charged towards the Doctor, I did the only thing I could do; I grabbed the 'TARDIS sniffer-outer' from the table close to my position and hit him in the side of the head with it. Kwok might have been a trained fighter in good shape for his age, but his reflexes were nowhere near fast enough to stop that kind of attack in close quarters. As soon as the object had struck him, he fell to the ground, one hand outstretched towards the Doctor and an expression of cold rage on his face before it relaxed into unconsciousness.

"Excellent job, Miss Swan," the Brigadier said, nodding at me in approval.

"Thanks," I said, out of a lack of anything else to say.

"So… what now?" Doctor Sullivan asked, looking at Kwok's unconscious form uncertainly. "I mean, I know that this Kwok chap's a threat, but this isn't exactly what we do normally…"

"True, but we do have some contingencies in place in the event of a situation like this arising," the Brigadier said, looking over at the other man with a slight smile before turning his grim expression back to the man I'd just knocked out. "We have contacts with a few prisons who are aware that we deal with… less conventional prisoners; if they can keep the Master contained for several months, I'm certain that they can handle Mr Kwok here."

"The Master?" I asked, looking at the Doctor inquiringly, only for the cold expression on his face at that news to make it clear that he didn't want to answer that question.

"What about his organisation?" Benton asked, looking curiously at the room around them.

"We need to destroy this equipment, but there might be some clues around here that will help us find out who else knows anything about this… Tong you mentioned he was involved in," the Brigadier said, looking over at the Doctor for confirmation. "How much of the truth will the general members know?"

"Not much, really; even when she was trying to bring Greel back to kill him, Hsien-Ko tried to maintain the illusion of his godhood and claim that he'd just returned to the heavens when I killed him to ensure their loyalty," the Doctor explained. "She'd probably have revealed the truth once she had Greel available- one of her pet peeves was that he was still worshipped by the Tong despite the liveshe'd ruined and the fact that he was just a raving lunatic towards the end-, but Kwok didn't really have the imagination to come up with a good cover story; he'd most likely claim that they needed to find me to avenge my role in preventing them recovering their god."

"In other words, he's unlikely to have left anything particularly dangerous to anyone?" the Brigadier asked.

"Almost certainly not," the Doctor said. "Greel had a few weapons he'd built back here, of course, but most of them would have broken down by now and Kwok definitely isn't smart enough to make them on his own; he's not stupid, but he just doesn't have a technical mentality."

"Right then," the Brigadier said, looking around at the four of us with a slight smile, "we'll get Kwok tied up somewhere secure, take this equipment somewhere it can be disposed of- stock it back in the TARDIS so that we can take it somewhere safe-, and then I can talk with Miss Swan about filling out the relevant paperwork before you both leave?"

"Eh?" the Doctor said, looking at the Brigadier in surprise, even as Doctor Sullivan and Sergeant Benton began to collect some of Kwok's .

"The 'Companion's Contract' I drew up for Miss Smith after she started working with you, Doctor?" the Brigadier said, looking at my friend with a slight smile.

"Oh, of course, that…" the Doctor said, looking at me with a slightly thoughtful smile.

"The 'Companion's Contract'?" I repeated in confusion.

"A contingency clause I requested that Geneva add to our records after the Doctor began to travel with Miss Smith last year… well, from our perspective it was last year, anyway," the Brigadier said, looking briefly at the Doctor before he looked back at me. "It's perfectly straightforward, Miss Swan; considering past precedent set by our interaction with the Doctor, this contract just ensures that you have the authority to request assistance or intelligence from UNIT if the Doctor should be absent but you yourself are available during a crisis-"

"Hold on; you mean… I'd have the ability to give people _orders_?" I said, staring at the Brigadier in shock as the Doctor smiled in casual approval at me.

"It would be more accurate to say that they'd have to _listen_ to you if a crisis arose and you had anything you could usefully contribute to the current situation; based on some of the tales I've heard, travelling with the Doctor provides you with more opportunities than what even UNIT gets to experience," the Brigadier explained. "I assure you, all information will be treated with confidence and kept sealed away; no attempts will be made to look for you on your own unless permission is given."

"Prevents temporal paradox by ensuring that nobody goes to look for you before you start travelling with me," the Doctor explained, noticing my confused expression. "Nice thinking, Brigadier."

"Zoe Herriott wasn't just useful for carrying out calculations, Doctor," the Brigadier pointed out, prompting a brief, wistful smile to appear on the faces of the two men before the Brigadier turned back to me. "Anyway, as I said, once those are sorted out, you can both be on your way."

"That simple?" the Doctor asked.

"I think I've learned by now that asking you to wait around when you're not needed would be… difficult, Doctor," the Brigadier said, smiling slightly at his friend. "You don't really stick around much these days, do you?"

"Not regularly, no," the Doctor said, before he smiled at the Brigadier. "But that doesn't mean I won't welcome the chance for a visit if it comes up."

"Quite," the Brigadier said, smiling at the Doctor before he turned to me. "Well, let's go, Miss Swan; the sooner we get this sorted out the better."

It might be a bit weird to think of the idea of me filling out paperwork for a government agency years before I was even born, but I couldn't deny that there was something kind of cool about the idea…

I might not have been good enough for Edward, but at least when I got home I'd be able to provide some kind of assistance in case things ever became _really_ bad…

I wasn't sure when I'd developed this new confidence in myself, but the more I learned about the rest of the universe in my travels with the Doctor, the more I realised how much I liked what I was becoming… particularly when examples like Kwok provided such a disturbingly vivid example of what I could have been if I'd been a little more warped…


End file.
